My host family/Argentinian food/Castellano argentino (Argentinian Spanish)/Argentinian Customs

I've made a good amount of friends in the CIEE program so far, and here's the link to a blog of one of them.  Rachel is like a dictionary...when I don't know a word, I turn to her first usually.  She knows what's up.  And after poking through her blog, I can see that she has something of a similar experience here; we're both more comfortable and at home in the rural life.  Haha.  Anyway, for more awesome Buenos Aires experiencias:  http://unasaventurasargentinas.blogspot.com/

So it's about time I said a thing or two about the aforementioned items.

Lets begin with my host family!  They're pretty awesome.  There's the madre, Cristina.  She has a small leather business with a friend of some sort.  I've seen nothing to do with it so far, but it means we have WIFI in the house, and that I can appreciate very much.  Cristina has had something like 3 students already, or I am the third...I don't know exactly.  Something like that.  In any case, they have taken great care of me because they KNOW what they are doing.  They know that the biggest challenge is getting around the city, at first, haha.  There's also Enrique, Cristina's 'partner' who doesn't live here but is hanging around a lot of the time.  He's pretty cool though, a really smart and knowledgeable guy that knows a lot about sports.  We've talked sports a lot.

My brother and sister are Axel (14) and Victoria (10).  Axel loves video games and, as far as I can tell, spends most of his time playing them.  He's way into Modern Warfare 2, and I've had a good time discussing games with him.  He's a nice kid.  Friendly.  Victoria is more subdued, for sure, and she spends a ton of time watching the Disney channel.  I really haven't talked with her for more than a little tiny bit.  Oh well.  She's kind of a funny, tiny little girl.

I also have two pets here; Esmeralda the cat and Luna the turtle.  Esmeralda seems pretty wary of me, but she's a really nice cat in general.  Luna is...very lazy and doesn't do much.  She only really moves to get out of the sun when it washes over the balcony where Luna spends a bunch of her time.  Just the other morning Luna somehow snuck under my chair at the breakfast table.  I was VERY surprised.  I hadn't ever seen Luna move, let alone pop up under me unannounced.  Cool turtle, fo sho.

Okay, Argentinian food.  is.  amazing.  My family is very italian in heritage, so I've gotten a good taste of both traditional argentinian food AND Italian foods.  Italian food is really part of Argentinian cuisine, actually, but yeah.  I haven't actually had any steak, however, not yet.  Also of note: my host mom, Cristina, feeds me a TON.  She won't let me leave the table until I'm DEFINITELY full.  I couldn't ask for a better attitude towards food!  Empanadas de carne are very common here, and VERY good.  My favorites are the ones with cheese and ham inside.  Amazingly good and easy to eat.  I love them.  In the morning I've eaten an omelet, fruit loop-like stuff, bananas, and this little sweet bread thing that I forgot the name of.  The other night, when we had company, we had pasta.  AMAZING pasta.  The noodles were cooked to perfection, and the sauces were ridiculously good.  There was this tomato-y sauce that went WITH the white sauce stuff, and the combination blew my mind.  Also amazing was the pesto plus Parmesan.  SO GOOD.  I had Flan for dinner a different night.  Flan is very...different.  I need to have more before I decide how I feel about it.  Also really common here is "Dulce de Leche," which translates to "Sweet of Milk" or something like that.  It's this carmel spread stuff that goes on a LOT of stuff.  I guess it's kind of like the Peanut Butter/Nutella of Argentina.  I like it a lot.  It's VERY sweet though.

Last thing of MAJOR importance regarding food: Argentinian Coca-Cola is GOOD.  I have like 2 every day.  Bottled in glass, made with only sugar...it's amazing.  I LOVE it.  Soda in general is way better here.

Argentinian Spanish.  Ooohhh.  Well, unless you're into Spanish, this section is probably going to be rather boring, or at least it won't mean much to you.  The accent here is VERY strong.  I'm sure that it is probably similarly strong in all Latin american countries, but this seems pretty incredible.  There have been times when I felt like I knew NOTHING of Spanish, and that I was totally incapable of communication.  It takes some boldness, courage, and willingness to fail real hard to talk to people sometimes.  My accent IS adapting though, and I'm learning how to carry your tone like a "porteño."  This Spanish is very "cantado" or sung.  It rises and falls in a really Italian-sounding way.  VERY important is the double L and Y sound.  Usually they are the same in Spanish, with the Y sound filling in where there is a double L.  It isn't that way here.  Instead of the Y sound, there is a "shh" sort of sound.  It's hard to get used to, but it sounds really pretty in my opinion.  It makes the spanish sound even more slurred too, but I love it.  Things are a bit softer because Rs aren't rolled as much, they are usually just passed over quickly.  Also, people don't really pronounce the "s" at the end of most words.  If I am going to say the tree is green, it sounds like "El árbol e (instead of es) verde."  I LOVE the Spanish here.

There's a big difference in conjugation of the "tu" form, as well.  You don't use "tu," actually.  Instead there exists "voseo," in which you refer to "you" as "vos" and change the conjugation a noticeable amount.  Instead of "tú tienes" you would say "vos tenés."  Or instead of "tú eres" one would say "vos sos."  It's hard to adapt to, since "tú" is easily one of my most comfortable forms of conjugation.  I like how it sounds though, so I'm doing my best to pick it up, along with the accent and the slurs.  Voseo only exists in Buenos Aires and the surrounding area, a bit in Uruguay.  There are a TON of everyday words that are different here, too.  It's called "rioplatenese spanish."  One example I can think of is the word for "here."  Instead of saying "aquí" you say "acá" to mean the same thing.

A small note on the customs: Argentines are much more affectionate.  When you meet somebody and when you say goodbye, you kiss each other on the cheek.  You always go for the left cheek, and you don't actually touch your lips to them.  It ends up being more like a kiss BY their cheek/ear.  It's kind of cool, but it's definitely way closer than the US.  You also do a sort of hug thing when you do that kiss greeting.  It's interesting.  People aren't afraid to put their arm on other people though, I don't think.

That's all for now, I think.  I'm finally caught up!  I look at classes tomorrow, and hopefully FINALLY take care of getting a cell phone.  It's just silly how long I am taking to get that out of the way.

OH, yeah, and the weather!  How could I forget?  It's between 70-80 every day, sunny with a few clouds.  It's not really my climate, but I'm loving it, even with 75% humidity.  The humidity is like Florence, the temperature is wonderful (It's summer here).  You can't go anywhere without sweating, and it makes sleep hard...but it's still incredibly enjoyable.  Especially since I've heard that it's raining like crazy back home.

So.  Whoa.  First few days in Argentina.  

First off: You all BETTER APPRECIATE how hard it is for me to write this in English.  It's not that I can't handle writing or speaking English.  It's that my world is now almost ALL Castellano (what the Argentines call their languages, spanish, whatever) and the spanish words come to my mind SO much quicker now.  It's hard to NOT write in Spanish.  Yeah.  That's what the spanish speaking world will do to you.  It's awesome.

So, I have pictures.  A good chunk.  Not as many as I wish I had taken, but then again I have 5 months here - I'll get a few more :P  Time to revisit some places I passed by and get good pics.  

Guess I've gotta recap the last couple days!  So, I woke up in Buenos Aires for the first time.  Talk about a weird realization.  Wake up, 6 hours of sleep later...feeling decent.  Look at surroundings...look out window...think for a moment.  BAM.  It hits you; you're over 5000 miles away from any familiar place.  Whoa.  

So I basically missed breakfast, and we all walked to the home base of our program, the FLACSO building (Facultad Latinoamericana de las ciencias sociales, I think, it's a school).  From 8:45-4:30 we had presentations and talks about how to get around the city, housing stuff (since we were headed for our host families that night), medical information...more about how to get around, since there's a lot to know and this city is MASSIVE.  It was extremely tiring to hear this much heavily accented, rapid Spanish.  it just takes a lot out of you, and I only understood maybe...60%.  When I was paying full attention.  Not much to say about this part..just full of STUFF.

So, that night I met some of my family and moved in.  I live in San Telmo, pretty much the oldest barrio in the city.  It's BEAUTIFUL and amazing and the apartment I'm in fits well.  My room is actually pretty big, I was very surprised.  I have a great closet and plenty of room for all of my stuff.  And there is WIFI, YES!  For a while I didn't have an adapter for my laptop, and when I ran out of battery in all of my electronics I couldn't do a thing...until today, finally.  A little more on that later.  

The next day was pretty much the same - waking up in a new place, headed to FLACSO.  This time I took the written portion of our spanish exam, having already taken the verbal part the day before.  It went pretty well.  It included all of the past subjunctive tense activity anybody could ever want.  A LOT came back to me, I was very very happy.  I found out today that I got into Post Advanced Spanish 1.  There are 4 levels you can be placed in.  The first two are "Advanced Spanish 1 and 2", and then Post Advanced Spanish 1 and 2.  The highest one, Post Advanced 2, isn't exactly a good choice for me.  You are limited to only one Spanish class in that case, and I think I might take two.  In any case, I'm very happy with how well that went.

After that we had a bunch of presentations like the day before.  This time they were based around the themes of "health and sanitation" and "the argentine education system."  It was all interesting, but after several hours of rapid spanish, I was super tired again.  When I got home, I just fell into bed and passed out for about 2 hours until 10.  Then when I woke, the family had two other families over for cena.  I joined and it was WONDERFUL.  Spanish everywhere, fun conversation, many people interested in me and in my home.  We were eating pasta - some with this special tomato sauce and this other cream sauce...some with pesto sauce and parmesan.  All I know is that it was AMAZING.  We talked for hours about everything from the appearance of Argentinian people to Eisenhower, the american president.  We talked a lot about American history, actually.  Those are some very educated and smart people.  They knew more than me in some cases, and it was a bit embarassing :P

After dinner I couldn't sleep until super late, unfortunately.  So in total I didn't sleep a lot.  Then I woke up today and went to mass at the cathedral in the center of the city.  It was INCREDIBLY IMPRESSIVE, and weird for me since I've never been to mass.  It was...scary.  I went alone.  Shouldn't have taken my bible, nobody takes a bible to mass. The inside of that Cathedral is amazing, I shall post pictures in the future.  It is unbelievably overwhelmingly beautiful.

After that, I eventually found my way to my group's tour.  We went through Palermo Viejo, starting at la plaza italia.  It was amazing, and I learned a HUGE amount about the history of the city.  Our tour guide was really interesting; he poke perfectly understandable castellano, NEARLY perfect English, and had no European blood whatesoever.  He was born in B.A., definitely, but he was totally middle-eastern.  Interesante.  In any case, he was really awesome, and he told us a ton.  Look on Facebook for all of my pictures.  Here are a few though.

Monumento a San Martin, or whatever it's called.

A random street that I loved.  Beautiful.

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That took a good 2 solid hours of walking, and at the end my legs and feet were DEAD.  So then we returned to la Plaza Serrano, where we found this random café.  It was a bit expensive, but also pretty nice and "hip."  And I loved the name of it.  "Como te extraño, Clara" and in small words below "Más de noche..."  I just thought it was kind of cool and poetic.  I ordered a soda (gaseosa, here) and a "Volcán de chocolate, con helado."  That would be a chocolate volcano with ice cream.  It wasn't actually that impressive, being pretty small, but the flavor was WONDERFUL.  I loved it, it was perfect to get my blood sugar up.  We sat there for a very long time, resting, but eventually we had to head out.  I went with a couple of people towards los Subtes (Subterraneos, Subways).  I had it all planned out, exactly how I'd get home.  I went with someone that I had just learned lives in the same barrio as me.  I soon felt really bad about it because when we got off, I took us the wrong direction down a really long street.  One direction would have taken us really close by our homes, but instead I took us like 11 blocks the wrong way.  But it was because the feria was underway, and there was a ton of fascinating stuff in the street.  There are countless street vendors with cool trinkets, mate mugs, etc etc.  I actually bought an electrical adapter, so I could FINALLY use my laptop here.  WORTH IT.  We even came across some one couple performing Tango in the street, and I took some video of it (Facebook).  Anyway, eventually we had to get home by taxi.

Quite the day.  Amazing day.  I topped it off by being up till 2:30 or something, the night before needing to get up at like 6:30.  Smart kid.  Next post will be about my family, food, and my monday.

Dude, bro, this party is sick!

HEY.  YOU.  I'M NOW IN BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA.  And it is soooooooo crazy.  SO much is different.  It's just...so much, simply put.  It's kind of overwhelming.  Something that has really helped is being able to talk to the other students in my program.  They're from ALL over the country, but we have related a lot and had a really good time together.  There's 80 other people in the program, so I obviously don't know half of them yet.  There are supposedly 2 other people from Oregon, but I've yet to meet them.  I suppose they must exist.  It's been very fun talking about Oregon, and seeing what people know of Oregon (which is nothing.  Well...one guy from Wyoming told me he had read about meth labs and the meth problem in Oregon.  Niiiice)  It's annoying hearing people say "OregOn."  And it seems like many Argentines don't know of the state, either.  Which is understandable...just tell them it's north of California and you're golden.  So I guess I'll recap everything  that has happened since my last blog.

Yesterday morning my family and I got up niiiice and early and got on the road.  I was stressing.  Anxious, I guess.  Everything at the airport went as smoothly as possible.  Teary goodbyes, however.  The flight was comfortable enough, about 4 hours to get to Dallas/Fort Worth International.  When I got to DFW, I found that I really still hadn't grasped what I was doing.  To that point, I hadn't had to think of my destination as Buenos Aires.  It was just "Oh, I'm going to Texas!  Oh, I'm going to Portland!  Oh, I'm going to Eugene!"  Also, the time between my flights was much less than I expected.  When I got there, I saw this huge group of people, heard Spanish flying around left and right, and the ticket lady was running through things in full spanish.  It was an intercultural experience already.  I got shakey and scared, lol.  But it was all okay.  I prayed and felt that peace.  I got on without a problem, and the 777 was an incredibly epic airplane.  First off, it's HUMONGOUS.  There are two columns of seats on either side, with 5 columns in the middle.  So the seats are 9 across, with two aisles.  At first, I found my seat and it was next to these really sketch looking American/British dudes and an Argentine family.  The father of the family asked me if I spoke Spanish, and then proceeded to blow me away with his accent and make me ask what he wanted repeatedly.  He had 3 seats for his family, but one of them was in row 30, while we were in row 20.  I wanted to let him keep his family together.  At that time, the other two dudes that were really sketch were trying to get me to stay.  I really dunno why.  They spoke like 10 words of Spanish, and were talking about taking some more hits and how much the emigrations officer was "sweating them."  I really was totally cool with moving when I saw someone of MY age and ethnicity in the row I would switch to.  So I moved back and the girl I sat next to happened to be in the same program.  That was really nice.  I felt so much less alone, starting then.  I had my own touch screen which had games and movies and tv shows...pretty crazy.  I watched The Social Network (decent, interesting), Unstoppable (GO DENZEL!), and almost half of Due Date (which got waaaayy bad, so I shut it off.  Super inappropriate.  I don't recommend that movie.)  Still...11 hour flight.  It took FOREVER.  I slept about 15 minutes, despite being insanely tired.  Ughhhhh.  The two meals came at what seemed like super weird times, it was dark at really weird times...the whole experience was just drawn out.  I didn't get to see out the window pretty much the whole flight.  As soon as I got off the plane in the airport (which I found isn't exactly IN Buenos Aires) I felt the humidity and warmth hit me.  Fleece - off.  The line for immigration stuff took about 30 minutes total, I think, including baggage claim and customs.  Everybody spoke really good English, and since my Spanish was worse than that...I went with English.  In fact, I got really unnaturally afraid of using Spanish.  Everybody has such a thick accent and burns through things so quickly...even though I'm usually fairly confident with my spanish elsewhere.

So I totally avoided Spanish/didn't talk much.  We met up with about 15 other students that had come in on the same flight but were all spread out and talked it up.  It was really nice to be part of a group.  After a lot of waiting in the airport, speaking lots of english, we walked a ways and got on a nice bus.  Airconditioning, comfortable seats...I almost fell asleep in the first 5 minutes, even though I was glued to the window.  I took a bunch of junky pictures, but I was fascinated.  There is SO MUCH TO SEE.  I was torn between watching the other cars, the people, the scenery, the buildings, and the weather (it rained!).  We got to our hotel, found our way to our room, and it's really nice.  It has several rooms and we have a total of 4 beds.  Only 3 of us are here that we know of so far.  At that point I had been in the same clothes for around 28 hours or more.  So the shower was WONDERFUL.  I took my time.  Fresh clothes were wonderful too.  We had a bunch of free time until 8, so I messaged home that I had survived, glanced at facebook, and headed out to explore some.  Some people wanted to get something to eat and maybe look into getting phones.  I wanted food, and the shower invigorated me enough that I could go without sleep.  We hit up a couple banks, I finally got me some Pesos, and we just walked around a lot.  It was really enjoyable.  The weather was just a LITTLE hot, but all in all it has felt AMAZING, coming out of super rainy and cold Oregon.  We ate lunch at a little cafe.  There was some culture shock there...so here are a bunch of spanish students, of at LEAST 3rd year equivalency...and we couldn't read half the menu.  Not even half.  It was rather shocking.  I ordered what I understood, and got me a Coca-Cola.

Best decision ever.  The coke here is different, bottled here (in glass) and made only wish sugar, not high fructose corn syrup.  It tastes SO good.  I don't know how to explain it.  My chicken sandwich was great, I tasted someone's wine (which was actually good!  Weird to think I can just...drink here), and ate a bunch of tortilla (con cebollos!).  We sat in that cafe for nearly 2 hours I think, just talking about everything.  It's such a diverse bunch of students that everybody brings something really interesting to talk about.  I loved it.  In fact, I got leaned into the table and remembered on 3 or 4 occasions that I was actually in Buenos Aires, Argentina, not back home in America.  Talk about a crazy feeling.  "Oh, yeah, I'm in Latin America."  We were just going at it in English, so it was easy to forget.  The waitress was very kind and her accent was beautiful...and thick.  She asked if she could take our plates, and we ALL just stared at her.  It was funny, but it has made me feel better about my hesitancy with Spanish.  After we left there we split up and just walked the city.  I saw a lot of beautiful buildings, none of which I can begin to describe.  The Palacio de Justicia was AWESOME, as was the obelisk (which is the background for this blog).  At the center of the city, by the obelisk, we heard what we THOUGHT was a protest.  Turns out Uruguayan fans were in town, busloads of them, and they were shouting at the traffic and waving their flags.  I figured they were futbol fans, but I didn't know anything more until I asked some random Argentino kid on the street about it.  I learned then that Argentines (or at least that one) are really friendly if you just talk to them in Spanish.  English puts them off.  He told me all about how wild it gets when these local teams go at it, and that it's just as crazy and more common when it's some of the really local teams, all from Argentina.  We talked for a while and it was very enjoyable.  His accent was super thick and I don't know what he said about half of the time...but he understood everything I said perfectly and I feel like I really started to open up right then.  I got a taste of how intensely involved in futbol these people are.  He told me which team he was a fan of, then showed me THREE tattoos representing that team.  We walked to a protest after that, accidentally.  Not sure what it was about.  It was super loud.  Then we walked back to the hotel, basically.

That's when I went to take a nap.  I planned it for just over an hour, set an alarm and everything.  My roommate did likewise.  We had to go to dinner at 8.  It was so warm, the air was like a blanket, so I just laid on top of my bed and slept easy, shirtless.  ALMOST too warm.  My roommate woke me at 8:20 in a daze.  Both our alarms failed and we were freaking out.  I think it's because we're both so tired.  The nap WAS really nice though.  In true latin american fashion, we made it to the lobby in time to join the last group headed to the restaurante with 30 seconds to spare.  Insane.  Dinner was good, the ice cream was REALLY good

I had some good, interesting conversations over dinner, and now I'm back in the hotel again.  I was one of the first people in his rooms, the rest walked the city a while longer.  I'm going to bed very soon though, forget anymore walking.  Which reminds me; My foot has been feeling pretty good.  I took ibuprofen today, after the airport, because it was nagging at me.  Considering all the walking I've been doing, my foot is in GREAT shape so far.  Time will tell about the trend though.  So, with this HUGE post, I'm gonna sign off and get ready for bed.  Sorry it's so long!  There's so much to tell!  Pictures will have to come later, the internet at the hotel here is really spotty and I don't think it would like the idea of uploading.

Hasta pronto!

Twas the night before an epic adventure began...

...and all through the hotel not a creature was stirring except for Luke.  Specifically, his fingers stirred as he typed up a fairly boring blog post.  I leave tomorrow!  Actually...I'm posting this well after midnight, so I suppose I leave today.  Crazy thought.  It's still a good 12 hours away, which seems like a big enough number.  Tonight: a motel in Eugene.  In the morning (and I mean like 6:30am morning) my family and I will hop up, get all ready, and we'll drive up I-5 to PDX.  From there, I'll check in and get all ready to go...sit a few hours, then board a plane for Dallas/Fort Worth International (4ish hour flight).  Hour layover, then the 11 hour monster from there to Buenos Aires.  I won't technically be in Argentina until Thursday, which is rather crazy to think about.  But in about 5 hours everything begins...I hop in the car.  I'm up late packing - I'm pretty much done now, but I need to spend like 20 minutes finalizing everything in the morning.  Then...it's crazy to say it...I'm ready to go.  I should REALLY be sleeping, considering that I slept about 4:15 last night and have to get up in less than 5 1/2 hours.  But...I can't.  Not quite yet.

I've had so many people pray over me and my trip; it's stunning.  I feel so incredibly supported and loved that while I'm anxious and nervous and excited and freaking out...I'm not actually scared.  Once I get to the airport and get on the plane, I don't feel like I will have any worries.  God's gonna take care of me.

I may post one more blog when I'm in the airport in Dallas, if I have the time.  If not...until I have the time and internet access, when I'm in Argentina.  GAH.  I'm seriously going to Latin America, and it hasn't hit me yet...it's just starting to.  Once I say goodbye to my family at the security checkpoint, I think it'll fully hit me.

I just created a blog? Sweet?

Well, this is it.  I just created a blog, because I'm leaving in 8 days.  This is just a test post, to make sure things are functioning well and that posts look decent with this template.  This picture is just to test that pictures work, too.  It's pretty unrelated.  But Samuel L. IS pretty awesome.

Buenos Aires, pronto!